Advances in microprocessor related technology have lead to widespread development and the adoption of computing devices. Computing powers that used to be available only in expensive mainframe computers requiring special operating environments are now available in many personal-computing (PC) devices. The form factors vary from desktop, laptop, palm-sized, and so forth. A number of these computing devices are packaged as “purpose” devices, such as set-top boxes, entertainment personal digital assistants (PDA), pagers, text messengers, game devices, smart appliances and wireless mobile phones.
Concurrently, advances in networking, telecommunications and related technologies, in particular, in the area of wireless networking/communications, have led to increased connectivity between computing devices over local, private, wide area, and/or public networks. Of particular notoriety is the Internet.
Today, local area networks may be wired or wireless. Similarly, wide area networks may be wired or wireless. Examples of the former include UWB, Ethernet, serial, WiFi, and Bluetooth. Examples of the latter include cellular, PCS, or WiMAX wireless networks offered by various wireless network service providers, such as Cingular, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Clearwire.